Gibbon's Decline and Fall (73 page)

As she might have done, except for the five small vials that sat on the kitchen counter, fragments of rainbow, self-illumined, ruby and topaz, emerald and sapphire—and that one of livid light, lapis made effulgent to glow with a hard, aching heat, like a bruise. Carolyn picked them up, reading the label on each. “Choose. Decant into Sophia's chalice. All will be as you have chosen.”

So. She hadn't imagined any of it. Even thinking so was a betrayal. She had imagined none of it. It was all real.

“What did she leave us?” Ophy asked.

Carolyn gave her the vials, and from her hand they went the round, returning to Carolyn, who put them into her jacket pocket.

Josh came in, seeing nothing unusual, unaware of any happening beyond what he had planned. Carolyn managed to remind him of the second shot for Webster, though she thought to herself it probably wasn't needed. Then the young men came to carry Webster outside while the women stumbled after them, watching while they loaded him into the last
empty pod and closed the heavy lid upon him. Josh went from pod to pod, referring to a card he held in his left hand while he pushed buttons with his right, waiting, frowning intently until each little green light came on. When the last one shone, he nodded in satisfaction, then came down to close, lock, and seal the door. The boys went back into the kitchen, gathered up the scattered clothing, and departed.

Carolyn gargled hoarsely, astonished at the pain in her throat, as though she had gasped her way across a desert. “Ophy. My family's in the study. I think Hal's hurt.” She looked at her watch, feeling guilty for the time that had passed, then confused that no time had passed. No time at all.

Ophy and Jessamine hurried off down the hall, followed by Faye. Aggie and Bettiann helped Lolly get up, then walked her into the adjacent dining room. Carolyn and Josh were left alone.

Carolyn asked, “You want some coffee, Josh?”

“I could sure use a drink.”

“Better avoid that. We don't want an accident on your way down south.”

“Right. Coffee, then. I'll have the drink later.”

Ophy put her head in the door. “Stace and Luce had already called for an ambulance,” she told Carolyn. “They say Hal was hit on the head. I don't think his condition is serious, but let's not take the chance. There's a wound on Stace's head that needs some stitches, too. I'll go with them to the hospital when the ambulance gets here.”

She went back to the den. Carolyn thought of going with her, discarded the idea. Ophy would care for Hal better than Carolyn could. Ophy would look after Stace's cuts and bruises. She, Carolyn, had to stay there, see that all went as planned. She put the coffee on to brew, asking, “What do their pods say, Josh?”

“Fifty years, murder of a police officer. FAT.”

“That isn't what Teo was in for.”

“I faked up some New Mexico conviction forms, then some add-on-sentence forms from Montana and Florida and Kansas and Illinois. They're all in the files, out at the jail. I didn't do the FUD forms, though. With no federal forms, there can't be any federal audits, like.” He seemed almost euphoric, totally relaxed.

“How do you feel?” she asked curiously.

“I feel … like I could fly. First time I've really felt good about those pods, you know.”

“And where do they go now?”

“Down to the Waste Impoundment Pilot Program.” He savored each syllable lovingly. “Down to WIPP. Underground. Way back in the salt caves. With the rest of the waste.”

She dug out a thermos, poured the freshly brewed coffee, added milk and sugar. “I suppose the pods could stay there forever.”

“No reason why not.”

If Webster's body was immortal, if he couldn't leave it so long as it was alive, certainly no reason why not.

“Long trip, Josh. Thank you.”

“Thank you.” He grinned. “First time I've felt useful in ages.”

The truck pulled out of the drive only a few minutes before the ambulance arrived. When it left, Ophy and Jessamine followed it, Ophy in her own rental car, followed by Jessamine, returning the one they'd picked up at the hotel.

Stace came into the kitchen, Luce's arm around her.

“What did you do with those men?”

Carolyn equivocated. “They've gone. They realized we didn't know anything about anything. Really stupid.”

“I know Jagger, but who were the others?”

Carolyn bit her lip. “Remember, I told you about cousin Albert? They were some of his FBI cronies.”

“I don't believe this! Mom, they were awful. That Jagger! He put some kind of stranglehold on Daddy, and Daddy just fell down like he'd been shot. And they hit me!”

“Some men do things like that, don't they? Especially men with a little power. Be thankful you've got a nice one like Luce.” Luce, who was giving her a very percipient look. Luce, who didn't believe the men had gone peacefully away. Luce, who might have to be encouraged to forget about the whole thing. Cross that bridge when she came to it. “Luce, would you take Stace to the hospital to get stitched up, and so she can be there with her dad? I'll get there as quickly as I can.”

From the dining room came Lolly's fretful voice. “I fell down,” she whined. “Why did I fall down?”

Aggie and Bettiann murmured wordlessly, soothingly.

Stace and Luce departed, Stace still muttering. Carolyn went into the dining room.

“Aggie, maybe Lolly would like to lie down or clean up.
She can go back to the big bedroom. There are fresh towels in the bathroom cabinet.”

“I'll take care of Lolly.” Aggie pulled the girl to her feet and led her away. A silence fell. A hole in the fabric of happening; a momentary emptiness.

Carolyn went to wash her face. The first touch of water on her cheeks brought a flood of tears. Sophy had been there. Sophy herself. Whatever she was, she wasn't dead. She'd been with them all the time. She'd protected them, taken care of them. Somehow, if Padre Josephus was to be believed, she had protected Helen, too, and cared for her. Then she'd gone back into … into that personage, that great assemblage, the Goddess. They had all seen Sophy. They had all seen the Goddess, too. No doubt. No question. No gates in the way. No guide, no conveyance. No rites needed. Just her, there, disclosing herself.

The hasty plan she and Josh had devised … well, it had worked out all right against Jagger, Keepe, and Martin. Nothing she or Josh could have devised would have worked on Webster. She'd known that, at some level, ever since the beginning. Once Webster got a foothold, no placating word would help. No amount of subservience. No exaggerated obedience. No tactic for female survival would ever have worked with Webster. Nothing could have defeated him except the one who had defeated him.

What was it Sovawanea had said? One must announce the battle. One must find the bane, then summon bane and beast onto holy ground. Her own homely kitchen? Which Sophy had made holy ground seven years ago in that ceremony they had so enjoyed, with the feathers, and the drums, and the planting of the herbs. In that more innocent time.

And why was she crying?

She told herself to stop it. There was something that had to be taken care of, quickly, before she forgot it. She found a small box, got out the tape, dug out some tissues for padding. She fished the vials out of her jacket pocket—red, yellow, green, blue, violet—and packed them safely away.

She hadn't figured out the allusion to Sophia's chalice yet. The Goddess Sophia and her flaming cup had probably gone away with Sovawanea and Tess and all the aunts and grandmas and great-grandmas. Still, the answer would no doubt become obvious, once she had a little time to think. Did she remember which vial was which? She told them over in her head. Mated
pairs. Women and daughters. Individual decision. Long youth. Or things as they had always been. Yes. She remembered. She jotted them down on a card and put the card in with the vials, sealing the packet with tape.

Who would make the choice?

No one, just now. There was no strength left to do anything just now. Carefully, she put the sealed box at the very back of a drawer in her medicine cabinet.

She heard Faye's voice outside, dried her face, and went out to the kitchen, where Faye and Bettiann and Aggie had assembled.

Faye was shaking her head. “Did I really see Sophy …?”

“We all did,” said Aggie in a wondering voice. “We all did.” She sounded stronger, suddenly resolute. “We really did! I feel such a fool. Why on earth have I been behaving like this? I've acted like—”

“You've been you, Aggie.” Bettiann hugged her.

“Well, I'm tired of being me if being me actually let me forget … forget that Sophy was my friend. All those years that I knew her, knew what she was like, and I actually believed she might have been evil. What kind of a life am I living that would let me believe that?”

She went away, biting her lip, tears in her eyes, with Bettiann close behind.

Stace phoned from the hospital. She had been stitched up. Hal was all right, sleeping comfortably. They'd keep him at the hospital until after they'd done some tests tomorrow. No need for Carolyn to come in.

What next?

Set out some leftovers for whoever might be hungry, including Lolly, of course, who was only Lolly again, very pale and stretched looking, yet with a shadow of beauty on her face she had not had before. She poured Faye and Aggie and Bettiann each a small drink, delivered them, then poured one for herself. There was no sign of Carlos, so she went down the hill to feed the sheep, to put the ewes and half-grown lambs in the barn. To stand in the starlit darkness, thanking the presence that brooded there that all Carolyn's loved ones were still alive and would also be able to stand in the starlight.

The black-and-white lamb nudged her, begging grain. She
knelt, offering a handful. The lamb wandered away, but the touch of soft lips in her palm went on. She found herself crying again. That's all right, she murmured, half to herself, half to the invisible, the ineluctable, the immanent. That's all right, dear. I know you're here.

H
IGH ON THE TOWERING WAVE
the figure of Fecundity soared, arms raised, reaching for the heights of ecstasy. Down from her fertile loins the children plunged, like dolphins, like fish, into the quieter pool and from there onto the sculptured shore.

Watching from the left was Hal–Noah–Dionysus–St. Francis–Silenus, with the fox in his arms and the eagle on his shoulder. At his feet a bear caught a fish, geese flapped in the pool; from behind him a great cat watched from a cave. Across the pool stood a gardener with a sheaf of grain, knelt a shepherdess with a lamb in her lap, crouched a dryad crowned in oak leaves.

The fountain held the hurry and rush of rivers, the placidity of pools, the slow seep of hidden springs—perhaps, so the speech makers had hinted, the very waters of life itself. Center front stood Sophy, Sophia, the figure of Wisdom, her figure now chastely robed, but her beautiful face looking out over the multitude, her hand extended to carry the awful weight of a goblet of clear glass from which water dripped slowly onto the outstretched hands of the children below.

The hoopla was over. The fountain had been dedicated, the speeches had been made. “In this time of great uncertainty … to express our hope for the future … to beg wisdom for our leaders … waters of life …” And so on.

Faye had been honored as the sculptress. It was she who had named the work:
A Tribute to Sophia
. The consortium had accepted it, and even Herr Straub, recently a much less opinionated Herr Straub, had signified himself satisfied. Now Faye was with the others, having a quiet lunch at the hotel, and only Carolyn remained in the plaza, among the passersby and lookers-on, sitting on the granite rim of the circling pool with one hand trailing into the chill water, the other clutching one of Sophy's vials, now empty, wrapped in a wadded tissue in her pocket.

“We want you to do it,” Jessamine had told her months before, during a brief and unique “special meeting” of the DFC. “The five of us voted on it. We've all written briefs for you, what we think about it. But we don't think a committee decision is a good idea. It has to be someone who's been happily married, someone who's had children. Someone who's seen … both sides.”

“Though not all sides,” Faye had commented with a snort.

“But don't you want to know …?”

“We don't want to know,” said Ophy.

“We trust you,” said Aggie.

Bettiann had giggled, her eyes wet, “Let it come as a surprise.” When Bettiann showed up at the dedication, William had been with her. That had come as a surprise.

And so Carolyn had risen this morning very early, slipping out of the bed without disturbing Hal and dressing quietly before coming down into the street, past the polyglot scatter of cleaners and sweepers who were readying the avenues for the coming day, then down the broad stairs that brought her into the echoing vacancy of the plaza, where her footsteps clacked intrusively on the patterned stones. All had been silence here. She had located the fountain by its dark silhouette against the eastern sky. She had stepped out of her shoes, leaving them beside the granite curb while she waded ankle deep through chill water, across the encircling pool. Sophia's crystal chalice was held out almost level with Carolyn's eyes. She'd thought a prayer might be appropriate, but after considering a few half-forgotten phrases learned in childhood, she rejected them in favor of something both simpler and more heartfelt: